Musicals musings

[lokifan]

I don’t know if this is people’s assumptions or I’m just watching the “wrong” musicals but every time someone says they find musicals too happy and pat, I’m like... Rent? Wicked? Les Mis? Hamilton? Sweeney Todd? Into The Woods? I mean it’s way easier for me to think of ones where people die and things don’t really get fixed.

Comments

[titti]

I think people use musical to talk about Hollywood musicals like the new Hugh Jackman movie as opposed to theater musicals.

There is also the fact that new musicals are more on the dramatic side, but the classics used to happier. Things like Hello, Dolly, Grand Hotel, Kiss Me Kate, Guys and Dolls, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, etc. you always knew that the happy ending was coming and everything would be well in the world.

[lokifan]

I guess? If I'm using the term "musical" though I'm always thinking theatre unless otherwise stated.

I think the classics thing is probably it, and I just missed a lot of those American standards - like to me musicals was Disney & Guys and Dolls, and then adult musicals began with Wicked and Rent.

[titti]

Maybe because I'm older but my first thought when I hear musical is Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. I'll think theater after all the Hollywood musicals.

[petra]

As someone who knows entirely too much Sondheim by heart, I vote "people who think all musicals are happy aren't familiar with real musicals, only The Platonic Musical."

[lokifan]

Oh that's certainly true. But then I'm like "where does this Platonic Musical idea come from?" because a lot of the old American standards passed me by but cahn has answered this for me!

[cahn]

Yeah, I mean, I was brought up mostly on the happier Rodgers and Hammerstein (that is, not Carousel -- Sound of Music, Oklahoma, and so on), Music Man, My Fair Lady, Camelot... they are pretty happy and pat. (You can still find stuff in that era that isn't -- e.g. Fiddler on the Roof -- but it's less common.)

That being said, it's certainly true that one of the things I love about Hamilton is that it actually is happy and pat relative to the actual history, which is of course much messier. I mean Eliza is just a precious cinnamon bun (Eliza: made of awesome!) and Alexander is adorable and I kind of really just want to hug everyone, which I am pretty sure I wouldn't have wanted to do with the real people.

[lokifan]

That makes sense! That kind of round of classics mostly passed me by, I think. Like I grew up with an awareness of Guys and Dolls and The Sound of Music, and I liked Camelot and West Side Story but I remembered the angsty bits of those. And then when I properly discovered musicals as a teenager it was Rent and Wicked, so those sort of American standards isn't where my mind goes when I think of musicals as a generic thing.

Oh yeah - I'm generally a fan of complex but optimistic (booooo grimdark), which Hamilton definitely falls under.